COP30 reporters' notebook: Day 8

Monday, Nov. 17, 2025 Belém, Brazil — It’s Week 2 of the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP 30, which means some organizations and teams get a handover while others are just handed more coffee. Over the weekend, thousands of protesters marched through the streets of Belém, demanding more immediate climate action and the protection of the Amazon. Some carried massive black coffins, with “coal,” “oil,” or “gas” written on them, and others marched through the burning heat on stilts — because why not? More Indigenous protests were planned for Monday morning, and the police presence was definitely stepped up around the venue. Inside the venue, meanwhile, there were more conversations about forests, oceans, and farming — three of this week’s big themes. I peeked into one conversation this morning in the Food and Roots pavilion, where Mariana Moraes, a Brazilian activist behind the Verdes Marias platform, was speaking. Her organization has written in the past about the need for consumers to reduce their consumption of meat, which, here in Brazil, the world’s third-largest consumer of meat, can be a controversial and divisive take. “Every time we talk about meat — it’s super stressful. We get a lot of haters,” she said. “We want people to change their behavior, and the companies … don’t want this.” <div id="asmwayenat" style="border-top: 3px dotted #ff9900; padding-top: 10px;"><h2>A small methane win</h2></div> By Ayenat Mersie The U.N. Environment Programme released a new methane report on Monday, and the takeaway is basically: progress, but not enough. The global methane status report says emissions are going down and that current nationally determined contributions, or NDCs, and methane action plans could cut the gas by 8% by 2030 compared to 2020. That would be the biggest and most consistent drop ever, which sounds great, but it still falls short of the 30% target in the Global Methane Pledge. In other words, ambition still needs a boost, and the report says “full implementation of maximum technically feasible reductions” globally is needed. Much of the recent gains are tied to slower growth in natural gas demand plus tighter waste rules in Europe and North America. But the gap is still big. As Caitlin Smith from the Changing Markets Foundation put it, “Methane emissions are coming down — but nowhere near fast enough,” and she pointed out that agriculture remains a major blind spot for wealthy countries. There was also a push to rethink who is responsible for fixing this. “There’s this impression that it's on top of the farmers that farmers are part of the problem — farmers are not part of the problem, farmers are part of the solution,” especially given that methane reduction measures come with productivity gains, Martina Otto, head of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition Secretariat, said at the launch of the report. And, as the report emphasizes, the waste sector is seeing important progress too, with Otto noting “we have seen a surge of mayors getting involved in it and looking at circular business opportunities along the way.” At COP, there have been plenty of interesting conversations on methane. One session brought together waste coordinators from cities such as Florianópolis, Dhaka, and Accra to trade tips on unlocking climate finance for waste management, which is chronically underfunded. They also got into less-discussed issues, like how new waste systems can unintentionally push out or harm informal waste pickers if equity isn’t built in from the start. <div id="icheena" style="border-top: 3px dotted #ff9900; padding-top: 10px;"><h2>India turns up the heat on climate ambition</h2></div> By Cheena Kapoor After a week of almost no action, the Indian pavilion was finally buzzing on Monday with the arrival of environment minister Bhupendra Yadav and his entourage, security, and a fresh wave of journalists to cover this week’s negotiations. India, which still hasn’t submitted its updated NDCs, is in Belém representing the Like-Minded Developing Countries, or LMDCs, and urging high-income nations to show “real climate ambition.” In his address, Yadav repeated India’s long-standing position that high-income countries “must reach net zero far earlier than current target dates” and deliver climate finance “at a scale of trillions, not billions.” He also pushed for affordable climate technologies and said they must be free from restrictive intellectual property barriers. Yadav highlighted India’s progress by mentioning a more than 36% drop in emissions intensity since 2005 and over half of its installed power capacity, about 256 gigawatts, now coming from non-fossil sources, an NDC target achieved five years ahead of our 2030 goal. He added that India’s updated NDCs “will be declared soon.” Meanwhile, on the sidelines came a timely release — UNEP’s global methane report. It revealed that the Group of 20 major economies, which include India, account for 65% of global methane emissions. India ranks as the third-largest emitter, responsible for 9% of the total, mainly from livestock and rice cultivation. The rice methane is projected to rise by 8% by 2030. The country contributes 12% of global agricultural methane. It’s notable that India’s NDCs do not include actions to cut agricultural methane. Experts say that India has prioritized food security by keeping agriculture out of its NDCs. “What Indian farmers need is not external pressure or arbitrary deadlines, but time and financial support to transition to regenerative, resilient, climate-friendly systems — without compromising the nutritional needs of over a billion people,” climate activist Harjeet Singh, founding director of the Satat Sampada Climate Foundation, told Devex. Calling COP30 a “COP of implementation and delivery-on-promises,” Yadav pointed to India’s global leadership through the International Solar Alliance and the Global Biofuel Alliance. He also flagged the momentum from the Nuclear Mission and Green Hydrogen Mission on India’s path to net zero by 2070. And acknowledging a community-led climate action, he said more than 2 billion saplings were planted in just 16 months, calling it a “testament to the power of collective action.” Editor’s note: This entry was produced as part of the 2025 Climate Change Media Partnership, a journalism fellowship organized by Internews' Earth Journalism Network and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security. Devex retains full editorial independence. <div id="refayenat" style="border-top: 3px dotted #ff9900; padding-top: 10px;"><h2>Refugees and carbon credits?</h2></div> By Ayenat Mersie “By 2050, the hottest 50 refugee camps are projected to face nearly 200 days or more of hazardous heat stress a year,” said Michelle Yonetani, senior policy adviser at the UN Refugee Agency. “Imagine what that looks like for people already living on the edge,” she told a COP side event hosted by the ODI think tank and the International Committee of the Red Cross on Monday. This reality is pushing the agency to rethink how camps can cope with extreme heat and to argue more forcefully that refugees and host communities need to be written into national climate plans, Yonetani said. Part of that shift is the new REP Fund, launched last week and described as “the world’s first large-scale, refugee-driven carbon finance initiative.” It’s designed to support reforestation, cleaner cooking, and green jobs that tie environmental recovery to livelihoods and protection outcomes. The need is huge: Nearly 25 million trees are cut each year in refugee-hosting areas for cooking fuel, accelerating erosion, worsening floods and droughts, and forcing women and children to travel farther at personal risk. Under the REP model, the carbon impact of reforestation and clean cooking programs would be registered and verified to produce the first large-scale refugee-generated carbon credits. The sale of those credits would then replenish the fund, allowing it to reinvest in new projects and build a more sustainable cycle of environmental recovery that also creates green jobs for refugees and host communities. <div id="ppayenat" style="border-top: 3px dotted #ff9900; padding-top: 10px;"><h2>Pavilion peeping</h2></div> By Ayenat Mersie China has a massive, buzzing pavilion this year — and much more commanding than in past years. On Monday, one entrance featured a copy of Xi Jinping’s “The Governance of China” sandwiched between sustainably made electronics and two plush pandas, while at the other, calligraphers sketched trees onto bookmarks and added attendees’ names. Inside, it’s wall-to-wall renewables and industry talk. I ducked into one session that looked intensely technical, judging from the charts on the screen, yet the crowd was locked in, headsets pressed to their ears as they followed every detail.